David McElroy

I feel most alone when I’m in groups of people. I’ve always known that — and I’ve talked to others who feel the same — but I might have figured out tonight why I feel this way.

I grew up expecting an idealized version of humanity. Maybe it was the futuristic utopias that I saw in much of the science fiction I read and watched. Maybe it was the idealistic spirit of the age in which I grew up — a time when there seemed to be a widespread belief that an amazing future was right around the corner.

Or maybe it was just something about my own personality. I wanted the world to be amazing — and I wanted to be the one to make it amazing. I wanted to change the world. I wanted to lead the world. I wanted to be at the forefront of creating an amazing, loving and humane world.

Everything I imagined seemed so right and good — and so achievable.

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Imagine living in a world where everybody sees black and white and shades of gray — and you realize that you’re different from everyone else, because you see the world in vivid colors instead.

The experience of color is amazing, but how frustrating would it be if you couldn’t explain to others what you saw? What if others didn’t understand, because they had no frame of reference? How painful would it be to want to share that experience of color — but you couldn’t share it with anyone? How lonely would that be?

For much of my early life, I assumed everyone experienced emotions in the same intense ways that I do. When I discovered otherwise, I was confused and struggled to explain how my interior experience of painful emotion works. I’ve almost given up, because so few are even interested.

I was reminded of this again tonight because of what I felt during a movie. It was just a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy, so it’s not something most people would have seen as intensely emotional, but interaction between two characters struck me in that oddly intense way. Two characters each experienced painful longing for the other, even though they couldn’t be together.

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I’m a master of denial. For one reason or another, I’ve become accustomed to disappointments over the last decade or so. Maybe longer. Denial has become my way of dealing with things I didn’t think I could control.

I was reminded of that again Friday evening when I unintentionally recorded some video of myself from the side. My MacBook was recording and Lucy wanted to jump into my lap for attention. I turned to let her jump up while she happily licked my face. I thought the video of her might be cute. But then I looked at it.

I know I need to shed some weight right now, but I walk around in denial about it most of the time. I’m about 25 pounds less than the worst I’d let myself get — maybe 35 pounds now that I think about it — but I still need to get rid of about 80 pounds of excess fat.

When I looked at that video of Lucy and me, every one of those 80 pounds seemed to be visible — and every one of them seemed to be taunting me.

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